


A Pinky Promise

by islandgirl



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: 911week2020, F/M, Family Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25176532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/islandgirl/pseuds/islandgirl
Summary: The Buckley siblings may not have had much growing up, but even when they had nothing, Buck always had Maddie. And that? That was everything.For 911 Week 2020 Day 4 Prompt: "Do you believe me" + love
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 8
Kudos: 76





	A Pinky Promise

The Buckley siblings may not have had much growing up, but even when they had nothing, Buck always had Maddie. And that? That was everything. In Buck’s eyes, Maddie was the strongest, smartest, kindest person ever. She had the answers to all his questions. She always remembered his lunch money. She made the best boxed mac and cheese. She gave the best hugs ever. 

As long as Buck had Maddie by his side, everything in the world was right.

Most importantly, though, Maddie never broke a promise. Ever.

If she ever made Buck a pinky promise, hooking her finger around his and giving it a firm shake, Buck knew he could count on it.

In fact, since that very first pinky promise Maddie made with him twenty years ago, she had never once gone back on her word.

Then, they’d been kids, a freak end-of-October snowstorm blowing through Pennsylvania and shutting down the state … and killing off any plans for Evan Buckley’s seventh birthday. He sat, forehead pressed against the glass, watching the large, wet snowflakes gather higher and higher, his breaths fogging the glass.

“We won’t be home tonight, Evan.” 

His mother’s voice sounds from the phone next to him on the back of the couch. He dropped the handheld next to him a few minutes ago when his mother put him on _hold_ so she could talk to someone else. Evan lets out a sigh, casting a glance at the device before turning his eyes back to the snow. 

“What about my birthday?” he asks quietly. Behind him, he can hear Maddie coming down the stairs.

There’s a hesitant pause before his mother’s voice comes back through the speaker. “What was that, Evan?” She sounds distracted. Evan sighs. She always sounds distracted.

“Nothing, Mom.”

“Okay. Your father and I will be back in a day or so. As soon as the roads clear up. Give Maddie our love.”

Evan slides down from his perch on the back of the couch, picking the phone back up and cradling it close to his chest as his mother speaks. Maddie pokes her head into the room at the sound of her name, eyebrow quirking, but she otherwise remains silent.

“Oh and Evan,” his mother calls out before he can hang up.

For a moment he pauses, hope bubbling up in his chest. They did remember! He knew it. There was no way, despite being three states away, that his parents would forget that today is his bir-

“Remember to change the litter box. Tomorrow is garbage day.”

The line clicks with the end of the call. Evan can feel tears burning in his eyes, but Maddie is staring right at him and he refuses to let them fall. He vaults off the couch, phone bouncing off the cushions and landing with a thud on the carpet. He pays it no mind as he rushes passed Maddie, charging up the stairs with thundering footsteps. It isn’t until he’s in the safety of his room, tucked tight into a ball in the corner of his bed that he lets those burning, traitorous tears fall. He hugs his knees to his chest, burying his face in a pillow, and sobs.

It isn’t until some time later that Evan peels his eyes open to find his room cast in evening shadows. He pushes himself up the bed, scrubbing a hand at his eyes as he follows his nose to the smell of chocolate permeating from the kitchen. When he rounds the corner, he’s surprised to find Maddie standing at the stove, stirring a pot. On the counter, a tray sits on a cooling rack.

“Maddie?”

At the sound of his voice, she spins around, smile stretching across her face. 

“You’re up!” she exclaims, turning back to the stove long enough to turn the burner off. “I was just going to come wake you. Dinner is done, birthday boy. We’re having your favorite.”

“Mac and cheese?” he asks hopefully to which Maddie just rolls her eyes and grins wider.

“Of course. What else would Evan Buckley want for his birthday dinner?”

She comes over and gives his hair a tussle, sending his curls in wild directions. He glowers and tries to bat her hand away which only encourages her to do it again.

“Quit it, Mads,” he huffs, pulling away from her.

“Grump,” she scrunches her nose up at him for a moment before she smiles again. “I also made your favorite for dessert.” She picks up the pan off the cooling rack and holds it out for him to see.

“Brownies,” Evan hums wistfully, eyeing the thick layer of chocolate icing Maddie has slathered on the top. Chocolate is a treat in their house, doled out only when their father sees fit … which isn’t very often. So for Maddie to have made a pan of brownies … amazing.

“Can we-” Evan starts, but quickly stops himself, pressing his lips together. Maddie already went all out for him today, he’s not about to ask another thing of her.

“Eat brownies for dinner and have mac and cheese for dessert,” Maddie finishes for her little brother with a hint of laughter in her voice. “Absolutely. Reading my mind. _Birthday boy_.”

She stresses it again like he’s somehow forgotten, and maybe he has, that today isn’t supposed to be just another day. It’s his seventh birthday. Even if there is a freak blizzard outside. Even if he slept part of the day away. Even if his parents forgot.

The thought settles sourly in his stomach, a frown edging the smile off his face. Evan sits at the table, watching quietly as Maddie moves around the kitchen, opening cabinets in search of something. It takes a minute for the shift in mood to hit her. As she sets paper plates and forks down on the table, she catches sight of the unhappy look on her brother’s face and freezes.

“Everything okay?” she asks, running her hand softly over the top of his head until she’s cradling the back of it.

The motion has the desired effect, drawing his head back so he looks up at her, those expressive eyes keeping no secrets. There are tears building there again, threatening to spill over. Evan’s lip wobbles as he croaks out, “They forgot me.”

“Oh Evan,” Maddie breathes out, pulling him quickly into a hug. She tucks his head against her neck, wrapping her arms around his skinny little shoulders and holding on tight as he sobs against her. He holds on to her just as tight, like if he lets go he’s going to drift away. 

There’s nothing she can say to that to make it better because she knows it’s the truth. Their parents forgot that today was their youngest child’s birthday. It wasn’t bad enough that they had already left them for a few days to manage on their own, but this? 

Maddie can feel a bubble of anger build in her chest as her baby brother cries against her. There is no excuse for her parents and damn if she is going to defend them, but there is something she can do to make it better for her brother.

It takes a a few minutes for his sobs to slow, but when they do, Maddie pulls him back just the slightest so she can meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Ev,” she whispers over the sounds of his hiccups. “I am really sorry they didn’t remember your birthday. But I promise you, I will never ever forget it. Okay?”

Evan just shakes his head, trying to pull away. “Don’t promise.” 

And okay, Maddie thinks, maybe she shouldn’t have promised. Their parents promised them a lot and never followed through. Promises meant nothing to the Buckley siblings.

“What if I pinky promise you?” Maddie asked.

Evan paused, willing to hear her out.

“Do you know what that is?”

“No.”

“Oh, well a pinky promise isn’t like a regular promise,” Maddie tells him, brushing away an errant tear from his cheek. “A pinky promise is the most special promise you can make to someone, it means that you will never, ever break it. You have to shake on it, with your pinky fingers. Like this.”

Maddie holds her hand up fist closed except for her pinky finger extended out, smiling when Evan mimics her motion. When his finger is up, Maddie hooks her pinky around his and gives it a firm shake up and down. A tiny laugh bursts out of Evan as he does it again and again until their fingers slip apart on the third shake.

“You can’t ever break it?” Evan asks curiously.

“Never ever,” Maddie swears. She holds her pinky out to Evan once again. “I will never forget you on your birthday, Evan. I pinky promise you that. Do you believe me?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Evan nods, wrapping his pinky around hers again and they shake on it, his grin sliding back in place.

“Good! Now, lets light your candles so we can eat.” Maddie settles the tray of brownies in front of Evan with a wide smile on her face.

“We don’t have birthday candles, Maddie.” 

Maddie just holds up a few pieces of spaghetti and a lighter. He’s looking at her like she’s lost her mind, but it doesn’t dissuade her. She breaks the pasta into somewhat equal pieces and pokes them into the brownies, then starts to light them one by one with the lighter. At Evan’s awed look, she laughs.

“Saw Mrs. G use one to light a burner in Home Ec last week,” Maddie shrugs. “Figured it could work. Now make a wish.”

* * *

And she never forgot. Not his eighth birthday, his ninth, tenth, or any birthday after that, up to and including his current birthday. She somehow even managed to get birthday cards to him no matter where he was traveling or staying. Even those missing few years where he didn’t talk to her, the only thing he ever got from her was a birthday card.

Sitting across the counter from her now, Buck feels an overwhelming rush of love flood his chest. Being 38 weeks pregnant didn’t stop Maddie from making their traditional pan of brownies or showing up at Buck’s door with them at 8:15am. While the rest of their afternoon is going to be filled with family and friends and a nice dinner to celebrate Buck’s birthday, Buck had insisted that his morning be about he and Maddie.

“You know Chim was ready to dig into these while I was in the shower,” Maddie tells him around a forkful.

Buck would open his mouth to respond, but that would mean he’d have to stop eating and that … not gonna happen. While Maddie only made boxed mix brownies when they were kids, she recently learned how to make brownies from scratch and they are divine. Buck’s devoured a quarter of the pan with no hesitation and is showing no signs of slowing down, when, across the counter, Maddie freezes mid-bite.

“Mads?”

Maddie’s fork clatters to the counter as she looks up at Buck with wide eyes. Her hands immediately drop below the counter and Buck feels his heart start hammering in his chest. He’s moving in an instant, coming around the corner just as Maddie starts to stand up. Buck takes in the sight before him as her shocked eyes meet his.

“Buck, my water just broke.”

* * *

“Maddie, she’s beautiful,” Buck breathes, staring down in wonder at his niece. _His niece._

She’s got Maddie’s nose and lips and, when Buck pulls the small cap off her head, a Chimney head of hair if he ever saw it; all dark and sticking up at all angles. And she shares the same birthday as him. Stubborn little girl held out until the very end, putting her mother through hell, until she finally came screaming into the world at 11:53pm. He can think of nothing better to happen on his birthday than this. He’s so transfixed by her, by the way she breathes and the way she makes soft suckling noises and the way her little fingers curl and uncurl. She’s perfect.

He’d paced the halls of the hospital all day, played messenger between the expectant parents and the waiting family, and drank so many awful cups of coffee. It was all worth it though for this moment right here, to hold her in the crook of his arm, cradled against his chest and watch her in her first few moments of life.

“What name did you …” Buck trails off as he looks up and realizes that Maddie has fallen asleep, completely exhausted. Sitting the the chair next to her bed, head resting on her arm, Chimney has also nodded off.

“Guess it’s just you and me,” Buck murmurs softly to his niece and paces over to the windows, giving the couple a few minutes of peace and quiet. “You are loved so much already, little one. So many people lining up, waiting to meet you. Your Mom and Dad are great, they’re gonna be the best parents. And you’ll have me too. I will always be there for you, no matter what.”

The baby in his arms gives a small squawk, one hand flailing out from the bundle of blankets. Buck easily rocks her in one arm, the other hand reaching out to tuck her hand back in the swaddle. Her fingers, though, wrap around the tip of his pinky finger and hold on. Buck smiles down at her.

“You learn that from your mother?” he waggles his pinky just the slightest. “Yes, I pinky promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> A fic that doesn't feature Buddie? Someone call the doctor!
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cptmeatball)!


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